Free Web NovelJust like the Pachi supervisor had thought, that milky-soft little cub egg quickly went viral on StarNet. freeweɓnøvel.com
Even though it was obvious from this leaked photo that it was a sneaky shot of someone else’s picture, and after being photographed twice the image quality had turned a bit blurry, even that garbage quality still couldn’t hide how good-looking the egg was.
It was too beautiful.
Wrapped in a small quilt and sleeping quietly, it was so pitifully lovable it made your heart ache.
“Oh my god! It’s the cutest cub I’ve ever seen. If I were Saint Clan, I’d buy it a pile of toys too.”
“It’s so well-behaved. Is it a newly bred pet, or some little baby from somewhere?”
“It kind of looks like a bird egg. Can any bird race come out and claim it?”
“Hey, hey... forget whether it’s a pet or a cub for now! Am I the only one curious how such a cute egg ended up in the Saint Clan’s hands?!”
Yeah. How could such a cute egg be connected to the Saint Clan?
Once one person raised that doubt, more and more people started to have the same question.
The Ninth Star Sector was remote to begin with. Most of its planets weren’t suitable for life at all. If there really was something this cute and beautiful there, it should’ve been discovered long ago. It wouldn’t have stayed unknown until now with no news at all.
And if you said it was a Saint Clan cub...
Someone attached a picture in the comments of what Saint Clan eggs looked like when they were young—covered in hard scales and unbelievably rugged-looking.
“.......”
They hurriedly looked back at the pretty egg that looked like a little angel, and compared the two.
No way. Absolutely no way!
That definitely couldn’t be a Saint Clan cub!
So the one answer that was closest to the truth and the facts was unanimously and firmly eliminated by everyone.
If it wasn’t a creature native to the Ninth Star Sector, and it wasn’t a Saint Clan cub, then the remaining answer could only be...
A guess that sounded ridiculous, but that everyone felt was very reasonable.
“Did the Saint Clan steal someone else’s cub?”
“Seconded. I think it’s very possible. A baby that pretty just screams ‘someone else’s.’”
“Then if it really is someone else’s cub... doesn’t that count as trafficking?”
“What trafficking? That’s plain robbery! Aren’t the Saint Clan always like this?! They’ve monopolized all those ore veins in the Ninth Star Sector!”
“I’m not taking the Saint Clan’s side on the cub issue, but the ore veins were found by whoever found them. If you’ve got the ability, go seize them too.”
“Stop fighting, stop fighting. The most important thing now isn’t it that we hurry up and apply for the Alliance to intervene?!”
Cubs were protected targets no matter what race or planet they were on.
Trafficking, seizing, and killing cubs were extremely serious acts and were strongly opposed by the public.
If the egg in the photo really belonged to another race’s cub and the Saint Clan had forcibly taken it, then the Alliance’s cub protection agency could open an investigation into the Saint Clan.
Even the Pachi supervisor hadn’t expected things on StarNet to develop into this.
Back then, it was only because it looked so good that the supervisor had secretly snapped the photo. At first, the supervisor hadn’t planned to post it, only to keep it.
But too many people came asking, and before the supervisor even fully realized it, the supervisor had already posted it.
And the moment it went up, the supervisor regretted it.
Only by then, the situation was no longer something a small-time supervisor could control.
StarNet was now filled wall-to-wall with voices condemning the Saint Clan.
The prettier and cuter the egg was, the more people cared about its safety because they liked it.
Some people even felt that the little baby looked fragile at a glance, and the Saint Clan were so brutal—how could they possibly take good care of it?
“I admit the Saint Clan are strong when it comes to fighting, but that cub obviously needs better care!”
Everyone on StarNet was shouting, and as the sentiment got passed around, the direction shifted into the Saint Clan maybe abusing a cub.
In people’s imaginations, the Saint Clan were terrifying, unbeatable demon kings, and that pitiful little baby in the photo was probably trembling in fear in the demon king’s hands right now.
You could only say the stereotypes about the Saint Clan had sunk deep. Compared to believing the Saint Clan would take good care of that cub egg, most people were more willing to believe the Saint Clan were brutal enough to just eat the egg outright.
And the Saint Clan buying so many toys for the egg still didn’t reduce the public’s negative impression.
Unfortunately, no matter how much StarNet was boiling over, the commotion didn’t affect the Ninth Star Sector at all.
On Dark Tower Star.
Recently, the Saint Clan had all picked up a new habit. From the Heimo at the top to the Tas at the bottom, almost every Saint Clan member would open their light-brain at intervals.
Only after seeing the photo on it would those icy Saint Clan feel a little better.
There weren’t many photos of the little Highness circulating—two, at most.
But just those two photos had already been saved by every Saint Clan member, and every day they flipped through them again and again.
While looking, they also kept thinking...
When would they be able to see a new photo of the little Highness again?
With that thought in mind, when the meeting started again, the Heimo who had the qualifications to attend, after saluting, almost couldn’t wait to throw their gaze behind Mansendis.
It had been days since they’d seen the little Highness. So the little Highness... huh? Where was the little Highness?
Those Heimo froze.
The small basket on the stone slab was still there, but it wasn’t there anymore!
Luckily, the next moment, the bone spines brought the cub egg back into everyone’s view.
.
It was also only at this point that the position of the sky had changed.
.
Mansendis sat behind the desk, while the cub egg was placed in front of him, almost right where he could lift a hand and touch it.
Wen Yuzhi’s “bed” had changed too.
Before, it was a small basket. Now, it had become a small seashell.
If the Pachi supervisor were here, they would probably recognize it at a glance as the set of toys the Saint Clan had bought back.
This seashell bed was the biggest selling point in that toy set. It was all polished from gemstones, with a velvet-soft cushion inside. A watery blue shell wrapped around the snow-white cub egg, like a pearl lost in the deep sea.
And the Wen Yuzhi who StarNet thought was being abused and could only tremble in fear was currently lying on the new bed, sleeping hard.
Cold? The bone spines covered him with a quilt.
In a bad mood? There were fairy tales he could listen to.
Sometimes he could even go out to sunbathe.
Every day was eat until he was full, sleep until he woke, then eat again.
By the time the cub egg appeared in front of the other Saint Clan again, it had visibly gotten chubbier.
The curve of the egg’s body had become rounder, a plump little oval.
Those chubby lines on an egg weren’t ugly at all—if anything, they made it even cuter.
The meeting should’ve been serious.
But because of the existence of this cub egg, the seriousness had taken on a subtle, delicate mood.
Especially when the cub egg slept obediently at the silver-haired sovereign’s hand, it almost looked like a cub that couldn’t bear to leave its dad—so even while sleeping, it clung close, nestled against its dad’s side.
Other than the little Highness, these Heimo had never seen anyone dare to get so close to Mansendis so brazenly.
But if you thought about it... if it were their king, they probably wouldn’t be able to resist such a cute little Highness either.
Mansendis saw everyone was present and directly announced the meeting had begun.
Today’s agenda was also about the Padar people’s mass prison break from a while back.
Selet kept a cold face and began reporting in a rigid, methodical tone: “This subordinate has already found the warship that went to meet the Padar people. It’s just that when we entered, everyone inside was already dead.”
The way they died was the same as those Padar people who had suddenly exploded.
Blood, flesh, and severed limbs were splattered everywhere inside the warship’s command room. The scene was extremely brutal.
You didn’t even need to think to know it was a silencing job done by whoever was plotting the riot, to prevent them from finding anything.
As for the warship, it was the most ordinary model on the market, obviously something smugglers had assembled themselves on the black market. Tracing it back would be like searching for a needle in the sea.
So compared to that, what the Saint Clan cared more about was how this foreign warship had slipped into the Ninth Star Sector without a sound, and without being detected.
On that point, Selet’s expression didn’t look very good either.
The security on Dark Tower Star had always been under Selet’s responsibility.
Now that something like this had happened, Selet had kept a stiff face for days, the pressure around Selet so cold it felt like it could freeze the air.
What’s more, if it weren’t for the River Styx fish—because of the little Highness—being willing to return to the Saint Clan and linger near Dark Tower Star, they might not have found this warship so quickly at all.
This warship felt far too strange. Its signal came and went, as if it could hide in the star sea and appear and vanish like a ghost.
That made Selet think of one thing first: spatial-jump.
But spatial-jump always left traces, no matter what.
The Saint Clan were the race with the most advanced spatial-jump technology in the entire interstellar space. No one used spatial-jump more extravagantly than they did, treating it like ordinary transportation—and yet even they hadn’t been able to detect it in advance.
Selet already had a suspicion in mind about an ability like that.
To be able to do it to this extent... to be something even they couldn’t sense...
It could only be the innate royal-blood talent of the Salilaino.
Selet didn’t say that sentence directly in the meeting.
But even if Selet didn’t say it, Mansendis could guess.
Or rather, back in the council hall, when that Padar attacker had hidden from the bone spines, Mansendis had already sensed a familiar feeling.
This kind of space-manipulating ability did resemble the talent ability possessed by the royal bloodline.
Mansendis didn’t speak, and after finishing the report, Selet continued keeping a cold face and didn’t say more.
For a moment, the entire meeting was especially quiet.
And that made the movement from the cub egg instantly become the only sound in the room.
Wen Yuzhi was sleeping.
But there were always talking sounds by his ear.
Buzz buzz buzz.
...So noisy.
The cub, sick of it, covered his ears.
After who knew how long, it became quiet outside.
But even after it quieted down, Wen Yuzhi still couldn’t sleep well.
Because he could feel wave after wave of heavy, dark negative emotions.
So many, so many—like dense, dark clouds suddenly drifting in across the sky.
Outside, there were a lot of people who seemed to be in pain...
Were they uncomfortable?
Without thinking, Wen Yuzhi wanted them to feel less awful.
Even though he was still muddled and didn’t know why, instinctively he didn’t want everyone to be sad.
Don’t be sad... huhu... pain, pain, fly away...
Copying how Dad and Mom comforted him in his memories, even in his sleep Wen Yuzhi hazily reached out with mental energy.
And his mental energy had improved a lot compared to the last time he soothed Mansendis. ƒreewebɳovel.com
The most obvious change was that his mental energy wasn’t limited to soothing only the silver-haired sovereign next to him—it could even spread through the screen to cover the other Saint Clan participating in the meeting.
Like an invisible wave of light, it spread outward from the cub egg as the center.
That soft mental energy touched every Saint Clan present, almost evenly, like it was sharing the rain and dew.
The cub’s mental energy felt just like the cub did—gentle and harmless.
Like a feather so light it was barely there, using the softest down to comb through those mental seas that were step by step approaching collapse.
Every Saint Clan member in the meeting felt that gentle touch.
They immediately looked toward Mansendis’s hand in shock, their expressions turning a little unbelievable.
Up until now, only Mansendis had received the cub’s mental-energy soothing. And besides Mu Luo, only Alvin and Mond probably knew that the little Highness’s talent had something to do with healing.
But the other Saint Clan members hadn’t known that at all.
Even though the little Highness made them feel like they wanted to get close, most Saint Clan had attributed it to the little Highness’s specialness.
After all, up to now, a royal blood like the little Highness—so gentle and approachable in temperament—had only existed in the little Highness alone.
They loved him. At the beginning, maybe it had only been that instinctive genetic loyalty toward royal blood.
But after being close, these Heimo could feel the little Highness’s goodwill toward them.
A kind of liking that treated them like family.
Not like the previous royal blood, who only treated them like dogs that could be ordered around at will.
Even though their nature was obedience, and even though in outsiders’ eyes they were emotionless monsters...
Longing for warmth was still the most basic instinct of living things.
This was a feeling they had only ever experienced on the little Highness.
Wen Yuzhi probably didn’t even know it, but every move he made was contagious—vivid, alive.
And his emotions would unconsciously infect the people around him as they interacted.
That was something other royal blood couldn’t do.
And so, in the moment they received the gift the little Highness gave them, these Heimo had also, from the bottom of their hearts, wanted to uphold the oath they swore to the youth beside the throne.
By blood and honor we swear: fight for the Saint Clan, fight for their great sovereign, fight for the little Highness.
And when they swore, these Heimo had never once thought about receiving anything in return from Wen Yuzhi.
Yet who would’ve thought—even before they could do anything for the little Highness, the little Highness had already comforted them, already combed through their mental seas for them.
A talent ability with healing effects...
Every Saint Clan present knew how precious a talent «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» like that was.
They didn’t feel any dissatisfaction at Mansendis’s concealment. On the contrary, one by one they became even more nervous and anxious than the silver-haired sovereign.
“There can’t be the slightest mistake by the little Highness’s side!”
“Has the little Highness’s personal guard unit not been formed yet?”
“This subordinate’s combat courses are all perfect scores. If the little Highness’s guard unit hasn’t been formed, then why not consider this subordinate?”
“Sly! If you can, then I can too.”
“You can’t beat me. If the little Highness is choosing, the little Highness should choose me!”
A group of Heimo, known for calm steadiness, nearly started fighting right there in the meeting.
Until Mansendis lightly tapped the tabletop once.
The sound wasn’t loud, but it instantly made those Heimo fall silent.
Realizing their earlier loss of composure, they hurriedly sat back down, their expressions returning to that calm mask.
Only, after learning the little Highness’s talent ability, they unanimously decided that no matter what, they had to protect the little Highness.
“What happened before, this subordinate will absolutely not let it happen a second time.”
Selet pressed the lips together, speaking in a tone that—rarely—carried a trace of emotional fluctuation.
Selet rarely made promises this solemn.
Once a vow was made, this adjutant—who never broke vows—would do it.
Even without the others saying it, Mansendis would never allow his child to fall into danger again.
One lesson like this was enough.
And maybe it was because he’d sensed those intense emotions, or maybe it was because after this large-scale soothing Wen Yuzhi needed to make up for what he’d consumed—Wen Yuzhi began desperately absorbing energy from the red crystal.
Absorbing and absorbing.
Without realizing it, the huge amount of energy pouring in had already exceeded what the cub could bear.
But the energy still kept surging in.
Wen Yuzhi felt like he was about to burst from being too full.
A massive warmth wrapped around him like never before, but the temperature kept rising.
So hot...
The cub was about to be heated awake.
Even Mansendis noticed something was wrong.
The egg’s body began trembling violently.
The bone spines hurriedly guarded around it, preventing the cub egg from accidentally falling off the desk.
And then, the next moment—
The Saint Clan on the other side of the screen only heard a tiny crack.
In front of everyone’s eyes, the egg sleeping inside the seashell bed suddenly split open along a thin seam.
All the Saint Clan froze.
After a few seconds of freezing, they realized—
The cub egg... cracked.
